iPhone Life magazine publisher David Averbach found that his iPhone 4S had a serious bug after updating to the latest version of iOS 5. His phone no longer remembered the names of any of his contacts. A post by Paul Hontz on The Startup Foundry clearly desicribes the issue. Apparently it only affects Verizon iPhone 4S users and only if you update your iOS software over-the-air. According to Hontz, his contacts are still there, but the person's name wouldn't appear if he got a call or text message. The accompanying graphic shows a text message that he sent to a contact and how it lacks the name of the recipient.

Fortunately, he describes a partial fix that he received from one of his readers:

Here is a partial fix

1) Open the Phone and dial *228. This is a Verizon over-the-air programming number.
2) When the system answer press 1 for “Program or activate your phone”
3) Wait for the call to disconnect. You should get a prompt stating something like, “Settings updated.”
4) Open the Task Manager (double click the home button) and kill the Phone, Message, and Contacts Applications
5) Wait a few minutes (I waited 3 just to be extra safe)
6) Open the Message App to verify the fix.

If you are still broken, kill the Message App again, then reboot your phone.

The iPhone 4S has been extremely popular, and works well for most people. But there definitely have been issues for some. Of course, the big one has been the problem of the short battery life. Apparently, the recent iOS update didn't fix the issue for many users. There are, though, things you can do to help fix the situation if you're one of those affected. Accordimg to an article on GottaBe Mobile, you can fix the problem in five minutes. The fix entails unistalling recent apps and gradually adding them back, and resetting all settings. And also, according to TechReviews, the new iOS 5.1 that's imminent will finally fix the battery problem.

Another bug that's been reported since the device's release in October is static during calls. You can read more about this on BGR. Unfortunately, there's no simple fix for this one, as it appears to be a hardware issue. Also, some people report getting a message saying that there's no SIM card installed in their phone. Apparently the recent update fixes this problem. You can read more about it on Examiner.com.

So how will these problems affect iPhone 4S sales? Not a whit. Analysts are expecting sales to soar in the first quarter of 2012, with Apple selling as many as 40 million iPhones. You can read more on AppleInsider. In addition, a report on AppleInsider says that overall, Apple "is about to deliver the the biggest earnings blowout in the history of the world." If that happens, Apple will have more revenue in one quarter than Google and Amazon had all last year. I wish I had more than my 20 shares of Apple stock, which will likely be rising higher.

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Jim Karpen holds a Ph.D. in literature and writing, and has a love of gizmos. His doctoral dissertation focused on the revolutionary consequences of digital technologies and anticipated some of the developments taking place in the industry today. Jim has been writing about the Internet and technology since 1994 and has been using Apple's visionary products for decades.